In conversation: Lex Amor and Caleb Femi on ‘hood highbrow-ism’

“That’s a mad photo!” exclaimed poet and visual artist Caleb Femi as we sat down in a central London cafe with rapper-producer Lex Amor ahead of the release of her sophomore album Forward Ever. I didn’t see what was so special about the image, which depicted a bunch of aubergines and tomatoes strewn across a slab of cracked concrete. To me, it looked like the sort of naff, ‘live, laugh, love’-style deco that you’d see in a slightly upmarket AirBnB. But this ability to see the magic in the mundane is exactly what sets Lex and Femi’s creative practice apart. 

Lex is first and foremost a storyteller. Delivered with a softly-spoken and melodic crunch – a quality that I was surprised to see extend to her speaking voice, too – the Tottenham rapper’s lyrics tread beyond her individual narrative, stringing together disparate perspectives and aphorisms to paint an almost photorealistic picture of the everyday, of life on the ground of the city she grew up in. Perhaps the most well-known example of this would be the collaborative release “At the Bay” with singer Bel Cobain, in which Lex adopts a male voice to tell the tale of someone whose life is spiralling out of control: first, they’re “losing sleep” in “upper flats”, then they’re losing their job, and, before they know it, they’ve lost their wife and kids too.

Sitting down with Lex that day, I couldn’t help but notice her powerful gaze. It wasn’t harsh or judging, but it was piercing, seeing with intention and without ego. This considered presence in her environment is on full display on this latest release. From the afrobeat-tinged positivity of lead track “SUN4RAIN”, to the confident MCing of “A7X featuring BXKS”, to the euphoric jungle releases of “BEG”, Forward Ever covers the full sonic landscape of the city.

It was also this celebration of the banal beauty in London’s inner-city environments that drew Lex and Femi together. Having won the Forward poetry prize for his debut anthology Poor, and featuring in the Dazed100 list that same year, Femi was brought on as an executive producer on the project – not as an artist, but as a sounding board, so to speak, bouncing off ideas and capturing the subtly surreal series of images on the project’s cover. It was, of course, already clear that both had an eye for beauty where others didn’t.

Below, we speak to Lex Amor and Caleb Femi on the deep-rooted philosophies that underpin Forward Ever, from “hood highbrow-ism” to finding the “magic in the mundane”.

How did you both meet?

Lex Amor: It was at uni, but I can’t remember the…

Caleb Femi: I actually met Lex’s sister first. Them days, I prided myself on being the banter guy, and then all of a sudden I meet Lex’s sister. I'm bantering her and she’s out-bantered me! Then she’s like, ‘If you think I’m bad, watch when I introduce my sister to you.’ The next day we met, and Lex rinsed me even more. I tried to have a two-against-one, and that day they humbled me. From then on, we were just friends. 

What did they rinse you on?

Caleb Femi: It was really sharp, quick, witty observations, you know. I think this is why we continued being friends, too. When someone can see the real you, and not what is just performative, there’s a calmness around them. There was a bit of security there, thinking, ‘Well, she knows who I am, so I can always be myself around her.’ 

Lex Amor: I always remember my first impressions of people and Caleb’s always remained the same. He’s got this elusive authority to him. I respected it. 

Where were you both at, creatively, back then?

Caleb Femi: It was 10 years ago…What’s the stage before amateur? We were just dreamers. 

Lex Amor: We’d written a couple of words to string together, I guess, but no real sense of direction or blueprint. When we started I don’t think we saw anything similar to what we wanted to do. So it was just closing our eyes and feeling it out. Working it out together was really encouraging. 

So, Caleb, how did you become involved in the current project?

Caleb Femi: It was initially just being a listening ear. Talking about the transition from Government Tropicana [Lex’s debut album] to this one, and the thematic preoccupations. I’ve always felt like it’s the stuff outside of the music, like: ‘How do we put this together? How do we communicate this idea of the project to the world?’ That’s where I felt the most useful.

Lex Amor: I think my primary passion is sonic, the landscape of music – that’s a space that I understand. When you’re so enthused by making a thing, it’s really easy to make that your full stop, so, having Caleb about to help me create a world visually has been invaluable, someone who knows my intentions and is there to help synthesise all my thoughts. The general themes in what we do are similar: we’re trying to make mundane things magical, throughout everything that we do. 

We’re attempting to articulate something that goes deeper than any individual experience. Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself in order to really express the beauty of what you’re trying to capture. It’s through me, but it's not necessarily about me – Lex Amor

Speaking of themes, I feel like the project is both visually and lyrically timeless, in the sense that its visuals and content could be as relevant 20 years ago as they are now. 

Caleb Femi: Yeah, definitely. We had an interesting conversation a couple of months back where the definition of Lex Amor isn’t just strictly one individual musician who’s trying to tell their story. It’s more like Lex Amor is a concept, a conversation about London – past, present and future.  

Lex Amor: I think, at the core of it, we’re attempting to articulate something that goes deeper than any individual experience. The individual experience is the lens that allows me to articulate and have a framework but, deeper than that, we’re trying to build something that is reflective of an experience, a feeling of being. Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself to express the beauty of what you’re trying to capture. It’s through me, but it’s not necessarily about me.

This is also your first release in four years. Why now?

Lex Amor: I think it’s so real that there’s a block between me making music and me understanding that I make music. I don’t consider myself an artist. I’m Alexis, and I make music. Alexis makes music as Lex Amor, and when Alexis has it in her, she makes it and releases it. So, what tends to happen is that I have no concept of being listened to. I think the gap in between [releases] was me coming to an understanding of what I actually wanted to do. When I realised that people were listening, I had to re-centre myself and my purpose and identify the things in myself that I wouldn’t compromise on before re-entering the space, and I think I’m coming back into the space now with a lot more intention. 

I’d love to hear the story behind the nine photos on the cover. 

Caleb Femi: I really like that cover because the city feels like it’s collapsed. The photos are like nine portals through which you can get a sense of everything that’s in the city – from the mundanity of a parked car to the hood surrealism of extreme sports, like BASE jumping from estates. We talked about this idea of ‘hood highbrow-ism’ – there’s localised art that needs to be highlighted and celebrated. Some of the pictures were bespoke, where we talked about a concept and then brought it to life, and some were pre-existing. But, if Lex and I have been talking about the fantastical nature of mundanity and all these things for ten years, then, obviously, what I’m making is in the same conversation, regardless of whether she’s directly involved in the capturing of that particular thing. We’ve shared that ethos, that interest in art, for so long, that the photos just naturally lent themselves to the story that’s being told in the project.

Lex Amor: It’s all an extension. The overarching aims of Black art that we’re making – like when you read [Femi’s new poetry book] The Wickedest – it’s making the norm beautiful, fantastical. That’s the magic of it, to give you the chance to understand magic that you exist in and partake in every single day. 

Can you remember the last time you noticed that magic?

Lex Amor: It’s everywhere. You can walk to the tube and, before you even get to the platform, I’ll point out eight things for you. I was recently thinking even when you’re walking and you see chewing gum stuck in a crack in the pavement. Say, you take a picture of it – no thought, no nothing – the mere understanding that that view is shared and understood by so many people is magic in itself. That mundane view of just looking down at a slab of pavement with shit all over it and cracked, grey concrete and knowing that that’s recognised by most people that live in the city. You don’t have to have anything in common, you don’t have to like each other, but the core being of your existence and all your experiences are shared. That’s magic. 

We talked about this idea of ‘hood highbrow-ism’ – there’s localised art that needs to be highlighted and celebrated – Caleb Femi

There’s certain lyrics on the project that reflect that. You seem to be expressing a positivity that is hard-fought for, that’s thought-out.

Lex Amor: That’s reflective of life. The truth is very simple: Everything is fine. It’s absolutely fucking fine. Regardless of whether we believe that, there will be a point where we come to understand that – I believe that with all my soul. It’s hard, however, to get to the point where it’s easy. It’s a fucking slog, but it’s very possible.

Caleb: That’s it! 

Lex: Even within that slog, of walking through the mud, the reason that one foot goes in front of the other is because, somewhere, you know that there’s a small seed of something hopeful. I’m not trying to pretend everything is super easy – it’s not – but I know for a fact that, no matter what happens, I get up and I go again. You get up and you go again. You know what I mean? 

Forward Ever is out now